


Please Don't Take My ____ Away

by PuppyGuppy



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Bittersweet, M/M, Melancholy, Post Re:Mind, Riku and Pence are roommates/flatmates, Un-beta'd we die like men, inspired by twitter talks of Riku/Pence friendships and Riku having a yellow room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:02:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25173577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PuppyGuppy/pseuds/PuppyGuppy
Summary: There was a stack of photographs in the corner, where one caught his eye. It was just a scenic photo, one of Destiny Islands (he’d been there just enough times to know), but in it was a tree. From a glance, it looked like an average, oddly bent palm tree, but instead of bearing dates or coconuts, this tree appeared to have some kind of star fruit. But, the fruit was yellow.Banana-bright-ass-yellow.
Relationships: Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 36





	Please Don't Take My ____ Away

**Author's Note:**

> title inspired by the part in KH2 where the word _photos_ was stolen

Pence hadn’t meant to  _ snoop. _

He’d set out with an easy enough task. He’d found a book he thought might interest Riku, and didn’t want to forget about it - but Riku was out with the other masters, so he figured he'd just go put it on Riku’s desk somewhere; assuming his friend  _ had  _ a desk. Even though they’d never really been in each other’s rooms before, he’d seen little to no harm in doing what he’d been planning to do. But that was before he pushed Riku’s bedroom door open --

He wasn’t sure  _ what  _ he had been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t  _ this.  _

For as long as he’d known Riku, which really, wasn’t all  _ that  _ long, he’d known him as a rather quiet, soft spoken, almost  _ shy  _ individual. One of the many reasons they got along so well. If one dug a little deeper, Riku was  _ just  _ a bit of a nerd, too. Pence knew he liked a little bit of poetry, appreciated art, knew of his childhood background in  _ ballet;  _ Pence knew Riku had the gummiship manual memorized, could synthesize materials and tools in his sleep, and could even crack a little bit of code. And then, a little deeper, Pence knew he’d seen some secrets that Riku probably tried to keep tucked away. He knew his friend had nightmares, and those were on the nights he actually  _ slept.  _ He knew how Riku liked his coffee, all  _ twenty  _ of them throughout the day, until he switched to tea before bed. He knew the soft, bittersweet smile he got when he was reminiscing, the clench of his fists when he would stop himself from saying something, and how, at the worst of times, he’d obsessively throw himself into training until black and blue and blistered, until his only option left was to shake until he passed out.

Pence could hear the difference between a real laugh of RIku’s, and one brought on by hysterics, if only because he rarely heard the former.

But, in all of that, never had he imagined Riku’s room being... _ yellow. _

And not just yellow, but banana- _ bright-ass- _ yellow. 

A brilliant, blinding, it took a few blinks to get used to, but then  _ tacky,  _ kind of yellow.

For a few seconds, Pence was beside himself. He was stunned, his wide eyes slowly scanning the three corners of the room and taking in every little trinket that he could see. Upon closer inspection, though the overall color was yes, definitely  _ banana,  _ there were various other shades of yellow, too. It was quickly quite clear that Riku lacked any skills when it came to interior design - who accented banana yellow with sunset orange? Or matched marigold with lemon? And was that  _ chartreuse?  _ Not to mention the differences in patterns and textures. All together, it was almost hard to look at. He couldn’t even  _ imagine  _ how his friend slept in here - especially when the sun hit the window. Wouldn’t it be dizzying? Disorientating? Wouldn’t it get too warm? Like living on the Sun -   
  
“ _ Oh. _ ”

Pence sucked in a slow breath. 

Riku’s room was yellow. Like the  _ light. _

There was a bed. A desk. A set of drawers with a vanity mirror. A closet off in one corner, a bookshelf tucked into another. A side table. The window by the bed was open, a soft, warm breeze ruffling through the curtains, and now that Pence  _ knew,  _ it all felt just a little... _ magical.  _ Another one of Riku’s secrets he was now privy to, even if purely by accident. But, there  _ was  _ a desk, and that’s what he’d been looking for, so without further ado, he padded over to the buttercream colored thing and gently plopped the book onto its surface. He had full intention of  _ leaving  _ after that, so he wasn’t really sure  _ why  _ he’d ended up sitting in Riku’s well-worn desk chair. But, now that he was in it, he couldn’t help but think how comfy it was. It looked rather old, the yellow painted wood faded to white in some spots. The cushion rather squishy beneath his butt, and checkered like a picnic table. The back of it had an intricate floral pattern carved out of it.

And, like one of those eyesight puzzles, once he saw  _ those  _ flowers, he started to see them  _ all.  _

Flowers painted on the walls, woven into curtains and printed onto blankets. There was a vase with what looked like fresh daffodils and sunflowers, a single yellow rose. There were others, dead and drying and hanging by the window, or pegged to a board on the wall. Some flowers he didn’t even recognize - tropical looking things - preserved in frames. Riku had told him once that the keyblade Kairi wielded could have very well been  _ his.  _ Pence had laughed it off, couldn’t even have  _ pictured  _ such a thing. But now maybe he could.

His eyes scanned the bookshelf, one of the only places with a different splash of color. All the spines were facing outwards, some titles familiar, but most not. Too many of them sounded like  _ romance  _ novels, mixed and mingling between mythology books, history books, spell books; a couple of science and technology books, and even a botany book or too. A children’s book titled  _ Winnie The Pooh.  _ The shelf also contained some knicknacks: a small model of a gummiship, a jar of what looked like sand, a few charms Pence recognized as the ones Riku could clip onto his keyblade.

The bedside table had a single lamp resting on it, but the rest of the surface was covered in a scattering of stones. Shards of seaglass and crystals and other such substances. It made the table glitter in the light, a little rainbow caught and kept captive in the corner.  _ Light.  _ More and more light the more Pence looked. The last thing he looked at was the desk beside him. He’d found an empty spot to put the book, but that had required some  _ searching.  _ One half of the desk was littered with crumpled pieces of paper, the other holding pens and pencils and even paint brushes. There was a stack of photographs in the corner, where one caught his eye. It was just a scenic photo, one of Destiny Islands (he’d been there just enough times to know), but in it was a tree. From a glance, it looked like an average, oddly bent palm tree, but instead of bearing dates or coconuts, this tree appeared to have some kind of star fruit. But, the fruit was  _ yellow. Banana-bright-ass-yellow.  _

Pence sucked in another slow breath, just as his eyes slid over a piece of paper with some writing on it.  _ Dear Sora -  _

It was a  _ letter. _

His eyes flicked back up to the pile of crumpled paper, and to where it avalanched over the desk and right into a neon yellow, metal waste basket. Which was  _ also  _ too full, and therefore avalanching onto the floor.

They were  _ all  _ letters.

\--

“Thanks for the book.”

Pence looked up from where he was sitting at the kitchen table, and in his haste to answer his friend, slurped up the mouthful of noodles he’d been eating in a silly, embarrassingly loud way. Once swallowed, he opened his mouth to respond, but then took note of the way Riku’s free hand was clenched at his side. His other hand was holding the book. 

Pence felt his face soften.

He hadn’t meant to  _ snoop.  _

“Hey - I wanna show you something. Follow me to my room?” 


End file.
